Atlas Network is proud to announce that Elena Leontjeva, co-founder and president of the Lithuanian Free Market Institute (LFMI), is the winner of the 2022 Sir Antony Fisher Achievement Award. She has been chosen as this year’s recipient for her lifetime of service to the liberty movement and especially to the people of Lithuania.
After co-founding the Lithuanian Free Market Institute in 1990, Elena Leontjeva served as the organization’s president from 1993 until 2001. She assumed the role of president again in 2020. Under her leadership, LFMI stood at the forefront of Lithuania’s post-Soviet transition and helped to institutionalize free-market principles. She successfully made the case for a currency board model which effectively abolished central bank monetary policy. Leontjeva tailored the legal foundations of Lithuania’s capital markets, stock exchange, and private pension funds. In 1995 Elena with her team designed the distributed profit tax model, today widely known as the Estonian profit tax. As part of her mission, Elena served as state counselor on economic reform issues under six administrations and later as chief economic advisor to President Valdas Adamkus in 1998–99.
Recently Elena published a novel The Market Square, or the Story of Two Joannes which reflects the philosophy of market, money, and liberty. Since 2015 Elena has pioneered multi-disciplinary research on the phenomenon of scarcity and co-authored a full-length documentary Sublime Thirst.
“When I first met Elena Leontjeva more than two decades ago, I was struck by the intensity with which she works for liberal principles,” said Atlas Network CEO Brad Lips. “Elena’s love of freedom is contagious, and she and her team made the Lithuanian Free Market Institute into a powerhouse. Elena greatly deserves this recognition, and it’s all the more timely given the threats to freedom again growing in Eastern Europe. Let’s take inspiration from Elena and LFMI and all who helped to recover from Soviet tyranny.”
About Sir Antony Fisher: Atlas Network’s founder, Sir Antony Fisher championed the ideas of free enterprise, individual liberty, and opportunity for all. He dedicated his life to laying the intellectual groundwork for a revival of classical liberal ideas, via independent research institutes that developed market-based solutions to public policy issues. In 1955, Fisher founded the Institute of Economic Affairs in London, and through his efforts, other think tanks began to proliferate throughout the world. He founded Atlas Network in 1981 and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth shortly before his death in 1988.
The 2022 Sir Antony Fisher Achievement Award will be presented on Thursday, November 17, during Atlas Network’s gala Liberty Forum & Freedom Dinner in New York City. Read our interview with Elena Leontjeva in the forthcoming summer edition of Freedom’s Champion magazine.